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A new orchard and garden: Or, The best way for planting, grafting, and to make any ground good, for a rich orchard: particularly in the north...With the country hous-wifes garden for herbs of common use...: As also, The husbandry of bees, with their several uses and annoyances...

William Lawson
London: Printed by William Wilson, for George Sawbridge, 1660

Rare Books & Special Collections
Strong Room Collection SR 634 M345

We thank our donor...

Conservation treatment of A new orchard and garden... was funded through the generosity of an anonymous donor in February 2016.

Synopsis

A popular gardening work of the late Renaissance/early Enlightenment era, Lawson’s A new orchard and garden… is filled with practical advice on planting and propagating, and is generally credited as the first book to deal with the difficulties typically associated with the northern European garden.

About British author William Lawson, born c1553, we know relatively little.  He is reported as being a religious man and the vicar of Ormesby, a small village in the county of North Yorkshire.  He published only two books during his lifetime (both on gardening), however those works were scattered with references to other classic texts, suggesting he was a man of considerable learning, who read widely on gardening and agriculture, and who drew upon considerable first-hand knowledge of the northern garden.

A new orchard and garden… was first printed in 1618.  It was bound together with Lawson’s other work The country hous-wifes garden for herbs of common use…, the first horticultural book written specifically for women.  Practical and sensible in its nature, it included everything that a 17th century woman would need to know about maintaining a productive, yet visually appealing garden.  In view of its recurrent references to A new orchard and garden..., it appears that Lawson intended for the two works to be read and used together and yet, The country hous-wifes garden…, with its woodcuts of symmetrical landscape design, was simpler in tone and aimed at what was then thought to be a less learned readership.[1]

A new orchard and garden… is equally practical in its advice but its coverage is more comprehensive, dealing with all aspects of orchard management, including soil requirements; fencing; pest control; planting, spacing and pruning of trees; the attributes of different bushes and fruit trees, and how to gather, store and preserve those fruits.  Lawson’s instructions are clear and draw upon skills gained over a life-time.  In fact, in the book’s dedication, he states his work is the result of “forty-eight years experience in working a northern garden.”  His writing is eloquent, as evidenced in the pruning section where he exclaims “what rottennesse? what hollownes? what dead armes? withered tops?...”.  It’s Lawson’s attempt to emphasise the importance of cultivation, the lack of which could result in the same neglect, dying and rottenness that we see in the woods.  Yet rhetoric never outweighs Lawson’s practical advice.  He is at pains to point out the “whole army of mischiefs” which can plague the gardener, including weeds which, given the opportunity, will deform all “walks, beds & squares…”.  Apparently “your under gardens must labour to keep cleanly and hansome [sic] from them, and all other filth, with a Spade, weeding knives, rake with Iron teeth…”.

Despite this aversion to pests, Lawson leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind as to the inherent beauty and majesty of his ideal garden.  Here, blackbirds and thrushes will sing, trees are abundant with fruit, flowers are sweetly scented and humming bees will not sting their friends.  Gardens will be beautifully ornamented and filled with broad and long walkways, mazes and perhaps even a bowling alley for exercise!  He even illustrates a plan for the garden which is divided into six sections, over three terraces, each negotiated by steps and inter-crossing pathways.  Its design reflects the Tudors’ appreciation for symmetry, and is adorned with flowerbeds, kitchen gardens, topiary and water features – all working together to form a sort of intimacy, an intimacy lost on the late Renaissance, Mannerist gardens.

Although it wasn’t published in the Elizabethan period, A new orchard and garden… reflected a passion for gardening that was typical of the era, where walls and knots of plants interweaved with intricate beauty.  It was Lawson’s advice, imparted with such practicability, however, that allowed the book to transcend an era - for it also appealed to those living in a time of burgeoning interest in travel, in geographical discovery and particularly in natural science.  There was a thirst for new information, for an exchange of knowledge about new plant species and how to care for them, and Lawson’s works answered those needs.

A new orchard and garden… and The country-houswifes garden… proved so popular that further reprints were produced in quick succession.   The Library’s copy is the third corrected and enlarged edition (1660) which includes a selection of treatises by other authors, including Gervase Markham’s Husbandry: Or, The enriching of all sorts of barren and sterile grounds in our Nation…. (1660).

Original Condition

Half-calf with marbled paper boards. Front board detached and rear board starting. Board corners severely bumped with significant loss of leather.  Spine leather also deteriorating.  Board edges slightly dented.  Requires rebacking.

Restoration by Anthony Zammit

Original spine removed. New custom-dyed leather used to reback book. Original spine leather, including green leather spine label, reapplied to new spine. Front board reattached and inner hinges strengthened with Japanese repair paper.  Rear board corners consolidated and repaired with new leather.

Footnotes:

[1] “A new orchard and garden, with The country-housewifes garden for herbs. London 1648”, Glasgow University Library, Special Collections, July 2006, accessed online 26 Feb 2017, http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/july2006.html